'Lackawanna Six' Suspect in Yemen, U.S. Kindly Appoints a Lawyer

It's bad enough we allowed the Christmas Day wannabe bomber to lawyer up, but now we're appointing lawyers to terror suspects picked up in Yemen?

The United States has appointed a Buffalo, N.Y., lawyer to counsel Yemeni-American terror suspect Jaber Elbaneh, who's been in custody in Yemen since 2008 and faces charges in New York that he helped recruit the so-called "Lackawanna Six" to train with al-Qaida.

U.S. Attorney Kathleen Mehltretter says the 43-year-old Elbaneh asked for a lawyer during a recent visit from U.S. government officials. Yemeni officials tell The Associated Press Thursday he's been in prison there since a 2008 terror conspiracy conviction.

Now this account says he's been in custody since 2008, yet a report today seems contradict that.

Jaber A. Elbaneh, who allegedly helped recruit the Lackawanna Six and is described by the FBI as one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists, is once again in custody in his home country of Yemen, The Buffalo News learned Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors and FBI agents want him returned to Buffalo to face criminal charges in the Lackawanna Six case that have been pending against him since 2002. They charge that he was part of the group of Lackawanna men who trained at an al-Qaida terrorist camp in Afghanistan.

But because Yemen has no extradition agreement with the United States, authorities said that there is no way of knowing whether Elbaneh, 43, will ever return to face the charges.

Yemeni authorities have had Elbaneh in custody several times in the past seven years, but Yemen’s government has refused requests from the U.S. government to extradite him.

“We are aware that he is in custody in Yemen and that he has asked for an attorney to represent him on the charges we filed against him,” U.S. Attorney Kathleen M. Mehltretter said Wednesday afternoon.

“We do want to prosecute him [in Buffalo], but as you know, there is no extradition treaty between the U.S. and Yemen.”

Mehltretter and other law enforcement officials declined to discuss how, when or why Elbaneh recently landed in the custody of Yemeni officials. A spokesman at Yemen’s embassy in Washington did not respond to telephone or e-mail messages from The News.

A Buffalo attorney, James W. Grable Jr., confirmed that he has been assigned by U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny to represent Elbaneh.